Creation

Ancient Egypt's Creation - The Beginnings

Isn't this where everything must start? At the very beginning? The religion of the ancient Egyptians did not begin with the apparent monotheism of Akhenaton, aka Amenhotep IV, or with some mystical connection within the Pyramids. Their practices began with the idea that Creation had a First Moment, and that Netjer, or at least some Name thereof, spoke or did something that brought the world and all its parts to life.

Though these texts do not specifically relate to Aset/Isis, except in the Pyramid Text telling the story of the creation of the first family of gods, including Her, they do provide the beginning of the religious context of ancient Egypt. To understand what their personal piety meant to the ancient Egyptians, one must go back to this Beginning, to Creation, to Zep Tepi, the First Time, that is memorialized and commemorated in ancient Egyptian temple ritual and even architecture.

The Heliopolitan Cosmogony-Creation by Atum-Re

from Utterance 600 of the Pyramid Texts as translated by R.O. Faulkner

Note: Here again we see in the Pyramid Texts, the oldest religious literature, Aset, or Isis, is named with the other children born to Geb and Nut, placing Her in Her most appropriate position as part of the Ennead and divine Daughter to Geb and Nut.

O Atum-Kheprer, you became high on the height, you rose up as the bnbn-stone in the Mansion of the bn-bird in On, you spat out Shu, you spit out Tefnut, and you set your arms about them as the arms of a ka-symbol, that your essence might be in them....

O you Great Pesdjet, Ennead, which is on On, [ancient Heliopolis or Iunu] namely Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys; O children of Atum, extend his heart to his child in your name of Nine Bows. Let him be turned back from you toward Atum....

The Hermopolitan Ogdoad - Shu creates the Eight

from Coffin Text 76 as translated by R.O. Faulkner

O, you eight Heh or Chaos-gods who are in charge of the chambers of the sky, whom Shu made from the efflux of His limbs...come and meet your father in Me, give Me your arms...for I am He who created you and made you, even as I was created by your father Atum...

I am weary of the supports of Shu since I raised up My daughter Nut from upon Me, so that I might give Her to My father Atum in His precinct. I have placed Geb under My feet...I am Shu, whom Atum created, from whom Ra came to be. I was not fashioned in the womb, I was not bound together in the egg, I was not conceived, but My father Atum, spat Me out in together with My sister, Tefnut.

The Bnbn, or phoenix, of Ra was that from which Atum came to be as Heh, chaos, Nun, the watery abyss, Kek, darkness, Tenem (or Amun), gloom. I am Shu, father of the gods, Atum used to send his Sole Eye seeking Me and My sister, Tefnut....I am the one who begot the Heh gods again, as Heh, Nun, Tenem, Kek. I am Shu who begot the gods.

Creation Story from Coffin Texts 80 as translated by R.O.Faulkner

O you eight Chaos-gods, being veritable Chaos-gods, who encircle the sky with your arms, who gather together sky and earth for Geb, Shy fashioned you in chaos, in teh Abyss, in darkness and in gloom, and he allots you to Geb and Nut, while Shu is everlasting and Tefnut is eternity...I am Shu whom Atum fashioned, and this garment of mine is the air of life....It is I who make the sky light after darkness, my pleasant color is the air which goes forth after me from the mouth of Atum...I am Everlasting, who fashioned the Chaos-gods, reproduced by the spittle of Atum which issued from his mouth when he used his hand...It is my son who will live, whom I begot in my name. He knows how to nourish him who is in the egg in the womb for me, namely the human beings who came forth from my eye which I sent out while I was alone with Nun in lassitude, and I could find no place on which to stand or sit, when Iunu had not yet been founded that I might dwell in it...Nun said to Atum: Kiss your daughter Ma'at, put her at your nose, that your heart may live, for she will not be far from you....I am the living one who knits on heads, who makes necks firm, and who nourishes throats. I knit Atum together, I make firm the head of Isis on her neck, I knit together the spine of Khepri for him...

Memphite Theology – Ptah as Creator

from the Shabaka Stone dated about 700 BCE but indicating earlier source, Lichtheim and Pritchard translations:

Note toward the end the reference to Wesir/Osiris dying by drowning, and being found by his sisters Isis and Nepthys.

The Ennead gathered themselves to him [to Geb] at his command, and he judged Horus and Set. He prevented them from quarreling further and he made Set the King of Upper Egypt in the Land of Upper Egypt, at the place where he was born. Then Geb made Horus the King of Lower Egypt in the land of Lower Egypt in the place where his father was drowned, Pezshet-Tawi.

The gods who came into being in Ptah:

Ptah-on-the-great-throne_____,

Ptah-Nun, the father who made Atum.

Ptah-Naunet, the mother who bore Atum.

Ptah-the-Great is heart and tongue of the Nine Gods.

There took shape in the heart, there took shape on the tongue the form of Atum. For the very great one is Ptah, who gave life to all the gods and their kas through this heart and through this tongue in which Horus had taken shape as Ptah, in which Thoth had taken shape as Ptah.

Thus heart and tongue rule over all the limbs in accordance with the teaching that it, the heart, or Ptah, is in every body and it, the tongue, or Ptah, is in every mouth of all gods, all men, all cattle, all creeping things, whatever lives, thinking whatever it wishes and commanding whatever it wishes.

Ptah’s Ennead is before him as teeth and lips. They are the semen and the hands of Atum. For the Ennead of Atum came into being through his semen and his fingers. But the Ennead is the teeth and lips in this mouth which pronounced the name of every thing, from which Shu and Tefnut came forth, and which gave birth to the Ennead.

Sight, hearing, breathing—they report to the heart, and it makes every understanding come forth. As to the tongue, it repeats what the heart has devised. Thus all the gods were born and the Ennead was completed. For every word of the god came about through what the heart devised and the tongue commanded.

Thus all the faculties were made and all the qualities determined, they that make all foods and all provisions, through this word. Thus justice is done to him who does what is loved, and punishment to him who does what is hated. Thus life is given to the peaceful, death is given to the criminal. Thus all labor, all crafts are made, the action of the hands, the motion of the legs, the movement of all the limbs, according to this command which is devised by the heart and comes forth on the tongue and creates the performance of every thing.

Thus it is said of Ptah: “He who made all and created the gods.” And he is Ta-tanen, who gave birth to the gods, and from whom every thing came forth, foods, provisions, divine offerings, all good things. Thus it is recognized and understood that he is the mightiest of the gods. Thus Ptah was satisfied after he had made all things and all divine words.

He gave birth to the gods,

He made the towns,

He established the nomes,

He placed the gods in their shrines,

He settled their offerings,

He established their shrines,

He made their bodies according to their wishes.

Thus the gods entered into their bodies,

Of every wood, every stone, every clay,

Every thing that grows upon him

In which they came to be.

The Great Throne that gives joy to the heart of the gods in the House of Ptah is the granary of Ta-tanen, the mistress of all life, through which the sustenance of the Two Lands is provided, owing to the fact that Osiris was drowned in his water. Aset/Isis and Nephtys looked out, beheld him, and attended to him. Horus quickly commanded Aset/Isis and Nepthys to grasp Osiris and prevent his submerging and drowning. They heeded in time and brought him to land. He entered the hidden portals in the glory of the lords of eternity, in the steps of him who rises in the horizon, on the ways of Ra at the Great Throne. He entered the palace and joined the gods of Ta-tanen Ptah, lord of years.

Thus Osiris came into the earth at the Royal Fortress, to the north of the land to which he had come. His son Horus arose as king of Upper Egypt, arose as king of Lower Egypt, in the embrace of his father Osiris and of the gods in front of him and behind him.

Back to Domain of Aset